The French team of Hugo Boucheron and Matthieu Androdias have beaten the Netherlands to win the men’s double sculls by 0.2 seconds in Olympic record time of 6 minutes, 33 seconds
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TOKYO — The Latest on the Tokyo Olympics, which are taking place under heavy restrictions after a year’s delay because of the coronavirus pandemic:
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MEDAL ALERT
The French team of Hugo Boucheron and Matthieu Androdias has held off a late charge from the Netherlands over the final 50 meters to win the men’s double sculls by 0.2 seconds in Olympic record time of 6 minutes, 33 seconds.
China made a strong move out of the start before falling back even with the French and the Netherlands. The Dutch boat of Melvin Twellarr and Stef Broenink briefly held the lead at 1,500 meters.
Boucheron and Androdias quickly reeled in the Dutch with a powerful push that was good enough to hold off a late charge at the finish line.
China Zhiyu Liu and Liang Zhang finished third for bronze.
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New U.S. beach volleyball partners Jake Gibb and Tri Bourne will have some more time at the Olympics to get to know one another.
The Americans had never played together before their first match in Tokyo on Sunday. They beat Switzerland 21-19, 23-21 on Wednesday to improve to 2-0 in the round-robin. They have one more match remaining, against Qatar on Friday night.
Gibb qualified for the Tokyo Games with Taylor Crabb as his partner. But Crabb tested positive for COVID-19 and withdrew, allowing Gibb to replace him. Bourne was on the third-place U.S. team in the qualifying race; each country is limited to a maximum of two spots.
Two wins should be enough to put the Americans in the knockout round. At worst, it would put leave them in a three-way tie for first and give them a tiebreaker match.
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MEDAL ALERT
Romania’s Ancuta Bodnar and Simona Radis have won the first rowing gold medal of the Tokyo Games, in women’s double sculls.
They bolted from the start and never let up in a dominating performance.
The rowing medal events had been delayed for a day because of bad weather forecasts amid a tropical storm.
Once back on the water, the Romanians were never challenged and led by two boat lengths with just 500 meters to go. Bodnar and Radis are both just 22. Their sprint to victory left the only fight for the silver medal, where New Zealand’s Brooke Donohue and Hannah Osborne edge the Dutch boat of Roos de Jong and Lisa Scheenaard.
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